Sunday, November 15, 2015

You too can fight terrorism!

Hello! This is Ugo Bardi - I tend to overextend myself on the Web by writing a lot of stuff. Presently, my blog in English is titled "Cassandra's Legacy". In English, have another blog a little more esoteric, titled "Chimeras" The first is dedicated to sustainability, the second to mythology, history, and art. In Italian, I write on "Effetto Cassandra."

5 comments:

WUWT and Roy Spencer have been criticized for exploiting the atrocities in Paris for their agenda of anti climate science.I think I understand the rationale behind this graphic exhortation, but it runs the risk of being seen as similarly opportunistic.

You hit the nail right on the head. Unfortunately, renewables won't let us have the world most of us are used to, as has been mentioned in a few places. Renewables can have the unwanted side effect of energy independence, and that's something that might be problematic for folks who are used to keeping us hooked on fossil fuels.

The effects of fossil fuels are far more consequential than terrorism- climate warming, sea level rise and the depletion (and eventual loss) of an energy source that keeps billions of people alive are ongoing planet-wide catastrophes. Unlike those predicaments, we could actually just ignore terrorist attacks, which would also have the side benefit of diminishing their frequency.

That disproportionate attention has been devoted to the relatively small numbers who have been killed by terrorists than to our devastating fossil fuel predicament shows the psychological truth of the old Stalin trope, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic".

Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome and the author of "Extracted: how the quest for mineral resources is plundering the Planet" (Chelsea Green 2014). His most recent book is "The Seneca Effect" to be published by Springer in mid 2017

Listen! for no more the presage of my soul, Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil; But as the morning wind blows clear the east,More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.(Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

Ugo Bardi's blog

This blog deals with the decline of the availability of natural resources, climate change, ecosystem disruption and why all that is happening. The future may not look bright, but it is still possible to face it if we don't discount the alerts of the modern Cassandras.Above: Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan, 1898

Chimeras: another blog by UB

Another blog by Ugo Bardi; it is dedicated to art, myths, literature, and history with a special attention to ancient monsters and deities.

The Seneca Effect

The Seneca Effect: is this what our future looks like?

Extracted

A report to the Club of Rome published by Chelsea Green. (click on image for a link)

Rules of the blog

I try to publish at least a post every week, typically on Mondays, but additional posts often appear on different days. Comments are moderated. You may reproduce my posts as you like, citing the source is appreciated! (not necessarily valid for posts written by authors other than UB)

About the author

Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy. He is interested in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. Contact: ugo.bardi(whirlything)unifi.it